Lifeboat Foundation

Cell-to-cell communication through nanosized particles, working as messengers and carriers, can now be analyzed in a whole new way, thanks to a new method involving CRISPR gene-editing technology. The particles, known as small extracellular vesicles (sEVs), play an important role in the spread of disease and as potential drug carriers. The newly developed system, named CIBER, enables thousands of genes to be studied at once, by labeling sEVs with a kind of RNA “barcode.” With this, researchers hope to find what factors are involved in sEV release from host cells. This will help advance our understanding of basic sEV biology and may aid in the development of new treatments for diseases, such as cancer.

Your body “talks” in more ways than one. Your cells communicate with each other, enabling your different parts to function as one team. However, there are still many mysteries surrounding this process. Extracellular vesicles (EVs), small particles released by cells, were previously thought to be useless waste. However, in recent decades they have been dramatically relabeled as very important particles (VIPs), due to their association with various diseases, including cancer, neurodegenerative diseases and age-related diseases.

Small EVs have been found to play a key role in cell-to-cell communication. Depending on what “cargo” they carry from their host cell (which can include RNA, proteins and lipids), sEVs can help maintain normal tissue functions or can further the spread of diseases. Because of this, researchers are interested in how sEVs form and are released. However, separating sEVs from other molecules and identifying the factors which lead to their release is both difficult and time-consuming with conventional methods. So, a team in Japan has developed a new technique.

The ability of plants to convert sunlight into food is an enviable superpower. Now, researchers have shown they can get animal cells to do the same thing.

Photosynthesis in plants and algae is performed by tiny organelles known as chloroplasts, which convert sunlight into oxygen and chemical energy. While the origins of these structures are hazy, scientists believe they may have been photosynthetic bacteria absorbed by primordial cells.

Our ancestors weren’t so lucky, but now researchers from the University of Tokyo have managed to rewrite evolutionary history. In a recent paper, the team reported they had successfully implanted chloroplasts into hamster cells where they generated energy for at least two days via the photosynthetic electron transport process.

An exciting Focused Research Organization (FRO): is systematically developing tools for working with non-model microorganisms.

As we walked, Lee told me that’s efforts to make “extraordinary” organisms accessible almost always follow the same basic steps. First, the team orders a microbe from ATCC, a non-profit group that has been storing and mailing microbes to researchers since 1925. The ATCC catalog includes more than 14,000 bacterial strains, the vast majority of which gather dust and are rarely ordered by researchers.

After receiving a microbe in the mail, sequences it. Mutations can creep into strains over time, and even a seemingly minor alteration—a single base swapped here or there—can change how cells grow and respond to their environment.

Continue reading “Inside the Laboratory for Extraordinary Microbes” »

Bluesky has apparently become such a successful X-formerly-Twitter alternative that even Mark Zuckerberg is anxiously taking notice. At this rate, the social site could potentially outpace Threads — and Meta clearly isn’t happy.

“The race to replace Twitter has accelerated,” Jasmine Enberg, a principal analyst at the market research company eMarketer, told The Washington Post. “Threads has been the de facto home for many displaced [X-formerly-Twitter] users, but the surge of new users to Bluesky after the election has upped the competition.”

X-formerly-Twitter, the giant in the space, has something like 300 million active monthly users — a number that’s been plummeting ever since Elon Musk acquired the site in 2022, opening up room for a proliferation of new challengers.

The “MANIFEST-17K” international study is the first to show important…

Pulsed field ablation (PFA) is safe for treating patients with common types of atrial fibrillation (AF), according to the largest study of its kind on this new technology, led by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Continue reading “Pulsed Field Ablation Procedures Found Safe and Effective for Atrial Fibrillation Patients” »

Professor Huantian Cao, are finding ways to interrupt that environmentally harmful process and turn the shreds into something new and usable.

“The scale of waste in the apparel industry is huge,” said Cobb, associate professor of fashion and apparel studies.

Research at UD explores ways to transform, reuse textile waste.

Continue reading “From trash to treasure” »

Challenging physics beliefs: Oxford study shows like-charged particles can attract each other over long distances in certain solvents.

Learn all about the difference between regular pneumonia and walking pneumonia in kids and when to take your child to the doctor.

Researchers in Lithuania present the molecular structure of a new, more-versatile CRISPR system for gene editing.